


Proceed to the Route

by scioscribe



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-21
Packaged: 2019-07-15 07:27:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16058381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/pseuds/scioscribe
Summary: When possible, make a U-turn.  Go back, go back, go back.





	Proceed to the Route

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Silex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silex/gifts).



Recalculating.

The road is a narrow strip of untilled earth. The asphalt stopped miles back but it’s only now that the gravel stops too, giving way to hard-packed dirt. Tall stalks of summer corn grow thick on either side, so close-packed that the headlights don’t penetrate them. Someone could be standing just past the first row of corn and the driver of the car, who is alone now, who is starting to worry about having taken the wrong turn, would never know.

Street intersection. Continue straight onto State Road 44. There is a stop sign. Be sure to come to a full stop, looking left and right. Be sure to think about the way a hand could suddenly come out of the darkness and press against the window, a palm flattened into shadows against the glass.

Low battery warning. The driver can screw the adapter further into the port, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference. There’s a red tint now to the GPS window, a taillight glow of power passing by.

It’s funny how easy it is to slip off the map even now. Patches of unincorporated land. Dirt roads. There is no McDonald’s here, no insurance company, no Speedway. No push to continuously chart what no one wants to find; that’s understandable until someone takes a wrong turn. The stars are bright overhead.

Beautiful. And it means no light pollution. No civilization anywhere around to spoil the sky.

Not even a barn to house the tractor to work these cornfields, apparently. No horse pastures. No farmhouse.

Drive south on State Road 44 until Wilderton Lane, then turn left.

Turn left. Low battery warning.

Wilderton Lane subsides to brambles and a dead end. Make a U-turn. When possible, make a U-turn. Go back, go back, go back. Recalculating. Alternate destination programmed. Drive north to State Road 44. Brambles crushed under car wheels.

Alternate destination is: Home.

You can’t go home again. Recalculating. Low battery warning. Back to the stop sign now, the one so closely hemmed in by the cornfields that there are dried husks littered around the signpost. There is a cigarette butt down there too, the end still glowing cherry-red. Someone has been standing there. Low battery warning: system shutting down. Destination saved. It’s only the wind making that rustling sound. Proceed to the route. Proceed to the route.


End file.
